Swimming pool cleaning devices (hereinafter pool cleaners) are used for maintaining residential and commercial swimming pools in a clean and attractive condition. Pool cleaners have been developed for cleaning and/or dislodging settled debris from the floor and side wall surfaces of the swimming pool, thereby substantially reducing the need for manual vacuuming and/or brushing of the floor and side wall surfaces of the swimming pool
A typical pool cleaner may include a housing and a drive member. The drive member may attach to the housing usually through a connection to a chassis. The drive member may include wheels, endless loop tracks and combinations thereof each. In the case of a belt or endless loop track, the track may wrap around the drive and/or idler wheels or rollers. The drive member may also be used to create at least a partial vacuum so that water will be encourage to enter one or more intake ports formed in the housing.
The drive member may be powered by a power source coupled to the drive member. Alternatively, the housing may be coupled to a swimming pool water filtration system by a hose. The swimming pool water filtration system may power the drive members causing the pool cleaning device to travel about within the swimming pool to dislodge and collect settled debris.
In most pool cleaners, the intake port may be located at a bottom surface area of the housing. The size of the intake port may affect the flow rate of water/debris into the intake port. For a given pump flow rate of Q, as the intake port gets larger, the intake velocity of the water decreases such that if the opening is too large, dirt and other sediment may not be pulled into the intake port and may stay on the floor of the swimming pool.
The clearance between the intake port and the floor of the swimming pool may affect the capability to pick up dirt and debris during the cleaning cycle. The intake port cannot be too high above swimming pool floor or the dirt and debris settled on swimming pool floor may not be picked up by the limited partial vacuum and limited water flow by the water pump.
The surfaces along which the pool cleaner run may affect the capability to pick up dirt and debris during the cleaning cycle. For example, obstacles such as swimming pool main drain present, uneven swimming pool surface may affect the water flow into the intake port and may cause the pool cleaner to not pick up dirt and debris as well as to stop moving.
To try and maintain proper functioning and optimum efficiency of pool cleaners, it may be important to try and minimize a size of the untake port in order to optimize the suction into the intake port. By optimizing the suction, one may try to maintain effective fluid suction into the intake port there by increasing the efficiency to clean and dislodge dirt and debris from the pool surfaces even on uneven pool surfaces. Further, optimizing the suction into the intake port may keep the intake port level on the pool surfaces thereby allowing the pool cleaner to travel up and across steeply inclined and vertical surfaces.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system and method that overcomes the above.